Ways might be different but the goal is same

I do not agree that almost all papers of any interest are available online and open-access. Many publications are behind paywalls or are available in printed form only. Even if you are not allowed to put a file online, you may send it to a colleague in a private message. I got already several publications this way or sent my own ones to those who requested. See also https://help.researchgate.net/hc/en-us/articles/14292986311825-Discovering-and-requesting-research.

Many people are really interested in this function of requesting full texts. See also these discussions:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_would_some_scientists_prefer_not_to_share_their_hardly_accessible_publications_with_others

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_people_are_not_posting_their_full_research_publications

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_average_response_time_for_a_full_paper_request/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Publication-Request-Reply/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/I_requested_a_few_articles_and_have_not_received_any_of_them/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Text_requests_for_my_publications/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/My_literatur_requests_are_not_visible_Where_are_my_requests/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_open_research_papers_which_are_not_accessible/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Requesting_copies_of_chapters_or_a_full_book/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Requests_for_Documents

All my papers are available on line. People should at least try publicly availabe sources before bothering the author. I would not publish in a venue that did not permit the submitted version at least to be posted on my web page, from where Google scholar will pick it up.

Hello Dr Trevor Bench-Capon

Following on from your last comment, many authors - unfortunately - have papers in journals which do not allow free access. My comment to researchers is that the title and the abstract - which I often find through various database/index search engines - often gives me clues on if I ought to look at the results or interpretation further.

This really highlights how important the abstract can be - and this website highlights how it can be done well for all those who are interested.

ttps://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/abstracts/

I noted that many users do no know what these full-text requests mean, i.e. that a message is sent to the author(s). They think that they request it from ResearchGate.

Even if a paper is available online at another site, it may be useful to upload it to ResearchGate. I noted that many full texts of my papers have been downloaded from ResearchGate although they are available also at the original or other sites. ResearchGate is a useful platform for discovering at a unique site publications otherwise spread over the Internet. If the full text is available at ResearchGate, users will not bother the author with full-text requests.